The Lion-Taming of the Shrew
by Nightfall Rising
Summary: Sirius babysits and Severus bakes cookies. Neither of these things is strictly true. CH2: Lily subtles like a subtle thing that subtly subtles.
1. The Turn of the Screwball

In which Sirius babysits and Severus bakes cookies and neither of these things is strictly true.

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**Disclaimer**: Profitless fanwork

**Warnings/genre**: references to past abuse, crack-taken-seriously, and enough fluff to choke a s'more.

**Post-It Notes**: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, SEVERUS! Or, er, peaceful? A canny Slytherin aims for the ambitions he can hit, I guess. But, hey, sorry, we love you, man, deal with it. :D

**Credit Check: see below**

**Story notes**: This can be read as a stand-alone, in which case all you really need to know that doesn't become clear quickly is that Evan Rosier is Sirius and Narcissa's cousin and Severus's flatmate (and, yes, in the Capital-F meaningful sense, but not everyone in the story knows that). It is, though, enriched for a reader who's familiar with my Subjectiverse and has at least read as far as The Wicket Gate. Originally I would have placed it before Valley of the Shadow on that timeline, but now I'm thinking maybe even during that story, after the Bit Where Sev Freaks. Lily's pregnant with Harry and living at home, anyway. I hope to stop at three chapters. n,n;

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**The Lion-taming of the Shrew**

_by nightfall_

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The Turn of the Screwball  


"Just look after him with a minimum of death," Evan wheedled. "I can't reschedule this wedding portrait, but I'll have him off your hands by teatime. Just have to put the last touches on and then I can make sure he doesn't kill himself trying to brew as if all his limbs are the usual size before it wears off. _One_ afternoon, coz."

"Why don't you dump him on Reggie or Prissy-Cissy?" Sirius complained. He was obviously going to capitulate—to get one over on Snape, largely, although the manipulative factor in Evan calling him 'coz' was depressingly eclipsed by how easily and naturally Evan still said it.

His problem here was that Evan had never been interested enough in anything not propped on an easel to be a bastard to anyone, as far as Sirius had ever noticed. Thing was, the supercilious prat was on the Tapestry and proud of it, and also joined at the hip to the Ice Queen and the Slimeball. More, he wasn't just a Slytherin generically but had survived rooming seven years with a sadistic, giggling, mouth-breathing pair of thugs that made Snivellus look like a prince among men. Sirius had to assume, given all this, that Evan put actual and significant effort into not being a bastard.

The other theoretical possibility was that the man really was as vacuous and dim as he looked and all the snakishness had just passed foggily over his head. Except that Evvie had, back in third year, innocently talked Bella into putting on a robin's-egg blue frock and behaving herself very nearly like a (hugely suspicious) angel for an entire extended-family Yule supper until the Minister left. Admittedly the rest of the evening had been highly unpleasant for everyone—_and Evan had not only looked like he'd expected that but told Reggie in advance to make himself scarce when Brookstanton went for his cloak_. So Sirius somehow didn't think so.

Which meant that now he, Sirius, had two cousins who were paid-up members of the human race and would acknowledge to his face that they were related to him. Even if it was just to cadge a free sitter. Even if it had to be pure last resort.

"I don't like thinking about Bella walking in on Reggie jumping when a half-blood says 'frog,'" Evan replied drolly. "Or, in this case, 'biscuit.' Don't think that'd end well for anyone. I mean to say, Reg at least tries to argue with Severus normally just to show willing, but under the circs he wouldn't just jump, he'd do cartwheels and have Kreacher buy out half of Honeydukes."

"…Yeah, all right," Sirius conceded grudgingly, trying to pretend there weren't any enormous, solemn black eyes burning unblinking holes into his chin. The worst part was that he couldn't tell whether Snape was smug about having Reg wrapped around his disgusting finger or pained about the twerp's susceptibility, and he was sure the little shrike was doing it on purpose. "What about Narcissa, though?"

"Oh, that's right out," Evan waved a dismissive hand. "He'd behave beautifully for Narcissa; the pensieve wouldn't be any fun _at all_. Now, don't fuss, Siri, you'll get on like a house on fire, just remember it's pronounced A-GUA-_MEN_-TI. I'll bring us back something for tea and you can both whinge operas at me then. You'll be all right, will you, Severus?"

"I'll be fine," Snape snapped, treble, "unless this lump is unexpectedly clever, but you won't, because I won't be forgiving you for this."

"Oh, Spike," Evan said helplessly, and crouched down next to him. "Now, listen, you already nearly brained yourself summoning a cauldron—"

"Which I won't do again," Snape droned, irritated, while Sirius nearly fell over laughing. Sadly, Snape was only droning at Evan; he was very clearly and deliberately Not Bothering To Be Irritated At Sirius Who Was Only Being Predictable. Which, Sirius had to grudgingly admit, was effectively irritating.

"Unless you decide you've learned from your mistake and you've worked out a better way now!" Evan was a fair-sized bloke for someone who'd played Seeker for a few years, unlike Prongs, who'd had a reasonable growth spurt but still bore a remarkable resemblance to a runner bean with a black caterpillar perched on top. His hands dwarfed Snape's face as he knelt to stroke down his cheeks, all warm, frowny, softly-exasperated concern.

Then his eyes clicked a little cooler, a steelier and Blacker hue than their usual misty, slightly greenish blue. Which Sirius considered a Confirmation, although he wasn't sure it proved anything James or Dumbledore would think was important. "Now, we agreed Lucius is an unfortunate data-vector," Evan went on in a voice that was just as mild and off-hand and vaguely amused as ever, which was creepy, "and if he is then Dad's worse so Linkin's out. And even if she wouldn't tell Lucius you know Cissa would take more pictures than the Wizengamot has beard-hair, so unless you want me to leave you with your parents…"

_"No._"

"Well then."

The six-year-old with suspiciously bright eyes, digging his shoe into Moony's mum's rag carpet, was biting his pout as thin as McGonagall's pissiest glare. At nearly twenty-two, Sirius felt, for the first time, a bit guilty about 'Snivellus.'

"What about Andi?" he asked desperately.

"That husband of hers," Evan began disapprovingly. Sirius was about to flare up at him for being one more pureblooded Slytherin bigot, but Evan went on, "has his own little potions lab and not the first _clue_ what Spike is like. Have you _met_ the man, Siri? Nice enough and very solid, just the bloke to have a butterbeer with, but not exactly the fizziest wand in the rack. Not to mention, he's _nice_."

"You did mention," Snape told him 'helpfully.'

Evan kissed his forehead, smiling like he thought Sniv was funny and not an insufferable little know-it-all pain in the arse, and told Sirius, "Spike'd have him 'trying to brew liquid luck' within the half hour, out of whatever he had in the kitchen, just to see how well the placebo effect would kick in if he could match the right Felix-yellow and sparkles."

Snape brightened.

Sirius told him, "_No._"

"But your flatmate's a werewolf," Snape pointed out reasonably, in that high voice that gave Sirius the ears-back hair-up jim-jams. As did what he was saying, but Evan didn't so much as blink. Sirius knew for a fact—well, at least, Dumbledore had _promised_—that Sniv couldn't tell anyone about Moony, so it was just as weird that Evan knew as it was that neither of them seemed bothered. Because Sirius knew for another fact, or he'd thought he did, that Snivvy was positively freaked about it. Something to think about. "And we wouldn't need silver or aconite to get the right yellow, so he wouldn't die."

"You can't just _experiment on people_," Sirius scolded him, and braced for an anti-werewolf rant. It would make his world sensible again, at least.

"_You_ do," Snape said with a proto-sneer.

Ordinarily at this point Sirius would have said _you're not people,_ but he sort of couldn't when Snape was all titchy and had just looked first like he was about to cry and then gone all excited over pulling what Sirius would have admitted would have been a keen prank for a little guy, if it hadn't been aimed at Moony.

"And I do it for work, right?" Snape asked Evan, a little uncertainly. "You just explain everything and get them to sign they agree first and pay them."

"That's the ticket," Evan agreed, and bundled him up in a tight, lingering hug. "You be good, Spike. But, er, how about not being amazing just for a few hours, all right? See if you can manage."

Snape almost looked, for a second, as if his face was capable of laughing.

"Use the reverse-portkey if you need me. Not for a joke," he shot Sirius a pointed look that meant if Snape was scared into really needing him for someone else's joke, that someone else was going to be in trouble, "but don't think too hard about it if you think you really do. I'll be back in a few hours."

"What does being good mean?"

"Whatever you decide it does, Clever."

Snape grinned, then stuck his chin out and truculently demanded, "You use yours if you need me."

"I surely will," Evan promised, not as if he were humoring the brat. He kissed Snape between the eyes, nodded at Sirius, and apparated away.

"How are you going to pay him?" Sirius asked at once, grabbing the momentum before Snape could go anywhere weird with it. He'd had a little brother once.

Snape glared at him furiously, his face going splotchy. "I don't _pay him_," he snarled. "He's _MY EVAN!_"

"…TMI, sprog," Sirius told him. "I meant, how are you going to pay Remus to do your experiment?"

"…Oh." The splotches turned face-colored. Snape started patting down his tiny, slate grey frock coat, which wasn't in fashion for either wizards or muggles, and was way too boring to be punk. After a moment he started going, "Need that, need that, need that, need that, that's mine, that's mine, nope, nope, need that, that's for work, need that, that's the library's…"

Since he had no obvious pockets showing and was a Slytherin, Sirius put this at even odds on Terrifying Tailoring vs. Screwing with Sirius.

"Ha!" And even bite-sized with his too-perfect, repressed-Victorian Hogwarts accent all blurred, it was a distinct _ha_, not a normal-person's _ah_ or _hyah_ or _heh_ of satisfaction or a pretentious _aha_ to try and impress Sirius. Just unadulterated triumph over his own pockets. Weirdo.

"If that's a chew toy," he threatened, not making any effort to intimidate just yet, just as if he were talking to Dora, "_I'll_ bite you."

Snape gave him a flat, narrow-eyed look of loathing that had been in no need of disillusionment but gave Sirius full marks for trying.

"Tough guy, huh?" Sirius asked, and nodded. "Well, if you're that sure you can stand up to mere torture, I'll just have to," he made a horrible face and waggled his fingers, "tickle you!"

Snape stared at him some more, but this time Sirius got the feeling he was amused somewhere in there under all the exasperation. "I had a de-aging accident," he told Sirius with tolerant despair, "not a lobectomy."

"I knew you were putting it on for Evan!"

Snape shrugged. "He's more aesthetically oriented than I am, but if he feels attracted to someone who's like this he'll be uncomfortable about it for days if not weeks. Not worth the risk."

"So you're saying he loves you for your mind," Sirius drawled. He might have expanded on that theme, but Snape got in first.

"I'm saying your cousin's not a pedophile and no one does well with cognitive dissonance and I'm going to bribe Lupin with this." Unfolding his spindly little spider-fingers, Snape held up a chocolate bar for inspection. In its current state, it was about the size of a knut, but when he squinted Sirius could read, 'Honeyduke's Best and Darkest, 100% Cacao, 1lb.'

"Merlin's best lacy Sunday bloomers." He rubbed his eye. "That's your idea of sweets, is it?"

Snape scowled. "It's _brewing quality_. And high-quality medical grade, for anyone who can choke it down."

"Well, you can't bribe Moony with that," Sirius told him. "He likes milk chocolate."

Snape's mouth took on a _he would_ sort of pursed, judgmental look, but he just said, heading for the hallway, "We'll add milk, then. Where's your kitchen?"

"On the corner."

Snape turned and looked at him. It was part _you're kidding _and part _this is you; you might not be kidding,_ and part _explain yourself this instant only I sort of really don't want to know_, and all _I have a headache._

"It's called 'our local chippy," Sirius told him cheerfully. "And there's a good Indian takeaway, the raita's amazing, you should try it with your temper, and the lager—"

"I will go through every room in this house," Snape informed him. "Yes, I said house, not flat. Because I will go through your neighbors' flats looking for your kitchen, and look pathetic and lost, and _you_ will have to explain, and if you try to make a waif look bad, Lupin will be going cringing to them for _weeks_ to try to make them regard you as some sort of human being again, even a mentally damaged and emotionally crippled one."

Sirius rolled his eyes. "Pull it _out_, Snape," he advised. "Fine, through here. If you pull a frying pan over onto your head, I'm telling Evvie you bullied me and he'll believe it."

"No, he won't," Snape retorted, "and if he did he'd congratulate me."

"…I think there was a compliment buried in there somewhere."

"I suppose there might be one to be found if you're nauseatingly self-centered and _unutterably twisted._ Do you have anything remotely resembling the most basic staples without which even the most sock-scented bachelor flat might as well curl up in shame and call itself a campsite?"

"Well, obviously. Loo roll's in the loo and beer's in the cold box."

"I might moan 'I may weep,' at this juncture," Snape told the ceiling, "but Black would hear. How vexing."

He was philosophical about the lack of two separate kinds of mysterious white baking powdery thingies which sounded suspicious as hell to Sirius, but kicked up a fit like a wet hen (a skinny, grey wet hen with a melted beak) when he found out there not only wasn't any flour but never had been. Finding Sirius's walnut butter and Remus's porridge oats seemed to placate him. "Butter?" he demanded suspiciously. "Sugar?"

"Sugar's in the jar," Sirius said, giving up on life and going into the cold box. The salamander looked at him reproachfully from the firepit at the bottom, but it looked to have plenty of Sloe &amp; Byrnes's special treated bog-oak chips down there. It was probably just miffed about the door being opened.. "You want goat butter or re'em? Moony finished the cow butter yesterday."

"Oh, dear _god_, what is it with you people and re'em dairy?" Snape railed, whipping around with wide, appalled eyes. "You put that back in there before it stinks up the whole—did you say you have goat butter?"

"Yeeeeesssss," Sirius drawled, looking at him as if he'd actually grown another head and not just pulled an ooh-squirrel. "We pick up a pound or two from Aberforth down the Hog's Head, sometimes."

"Up. We'll use that," the little tyrant dictated confidently, looking very pleased about it.

"…Up."

"Scotland, London, look at a map," Sniv explained with enough patience to make Sirius's palms itch. "Hogsmeade is _North_ of us. Not 'down the Hog's Head,' up. Don't you have any aprons?"

"It's a unit of speech, Snape, fuck. No we don't have any sodding aprons, playing frilly maid not being a usual—"

"I want a _cooking_ apron," Snape told him impatiently. "I don't give a flying buttress for your bedroom wardrobe. And I hope you don't talk to Nymphadora Tonks with that mouth."

Sirius wasn't going to let that lie, but he had to ask, "…A flying _what?_"

"They're architectural features," Snape explained, bland-faced but with bright, smirky eyes that made Sirius wonder things about the Sorting Hat, gave him just a flash of wondering what Hogwarts could have been like if that fourth bed in their dorm had housed a spine as well as an imagination. "Like fornications." He charmed a tea towel to stick to his front.

Sirius put on a Concerned Face. "The Reasonable Restriction," he began to scold ponderously.

"I was born in 1959 and I've been using my wand nine years," Snape cut him off scornfully, nearly crawling under the sink to look for, Sirius supposed, mixing bowls or something.

"1958," he mentioned on his own behalf, hauling him out of there with a flick of his wand. "Keep out of it under there, Sniv, there's all the cleaning supplies and that. You could breathe something."

Snape was suddenly right in his face, and for a second it didn't matter how much smaller his own face was; those venomous eyes were just the same as always, sparking and furious like screaming power drills. "Do _not_ wand-handle me," he spat, his little fist twisting the collar of Sirius's favorite Zeppelin shirt tight (the one from their States tour, with the phoenix-y red angel. He liked to wear it around Dumbledore, because everyone else in the Order told him he was Flaunting State Secrets but the old coot just laughed and said modern musicians were all trying to out-do Wagner because they knew they couldn't touch Beethoven), cutting off his circulation just a little, that pale, unvarnished, almost bamboo-looking wand of his jabbing Sirius's belly. No one recognized the wood; it wasn't a type Ollivander used. Rumor had it he'd made it himself from something Hagrid had grown under the bed. "Hands. Off."

Fortunately for him, however almost normal-for-them this felt at close range, his nose was so much less sharp, peaky and hawkish than usual—more parrot-like—that Sirius didn't feel quite right about stomping him into a smear on the lino. He put up slightly mocking hands instead, and said, "Whatever you say, tiger."

Snape backed off, after a long, suspicious moment, just as fast as he'd struck, though a real little boy would have set his teeth into that patronizing tone and howled. Sirius held his expression steady for the further several seconds until the wand went back in its holster and Snape scoffed, "Yes, I've always been unutterably impressed by those two months," as if nothing had happened.

Sirius grinned a little to himself, just privately. It wasn't something he could tell anyone, but, well, Peter and even Moony would have been making him pay for something that had pissed them off that much for weeks. Especially, in Moony's case, if he failed to grovel. With Snape, once a clash was over, he had other things to think about. Oh, he'd get you back if (when) he thought justice was called for, but even an implicit apology or promise to stop would completely satisfy him and cut off the prolonged-and-continuous suffering, as long as he didn't think he had to worry about the same thing happening again. Just like James.

But if they were pretending nothing had happened, then that's what they were doing. So Sirius demanded, "What do you care about the Nymphlet?"

"Nothing particularly, myself," said Snape, "but she's the niece or near-cousin of several of my friends." He shrugged, and tried to climb onto the counter to get at the flatware.

"We don't have mixing bowls," Sirius told him, not so much taking pity as alarmed for the stack of vinyls three inches from his tiny scrabbling boots. Gramophones were much easier to make go with magic than cassette players, which would have been unfortunate if the stuff that you could only get on cassette wasn't largely under the impression you could make up for a lack of genius with screech, skin, and hair. "You can't expect me to believe—"

"You don't have _mixing bowls?_"

"Because we _have no need to mix things._"

Snape's mouth dropped open. If Sirius had known that was all it would take to get him to do that, he'd have taken a photo of his cupboard over to Dye-Urn or St. Mungo's ages ago. With a stealth camera. "How do you live?!" he demanded.

"Like normal people," Sirius explained helpfully. "On, you know, take-away and beans and toast and soup and pasta and sarnies and take-away."

Snape sputtered for a second, and then, in the tone of one making an irrefutable point, accused, "Breakfast!"

"It's a thing that exists, I believe," Sirius affected a baffled yawn. "I've heard about it." Snape narrowed his eyes at him. Sirius's rolled. He pointed at the frying pan. "Eggs and bacon," he explained, and pointed at the little saucepan. "Porridge." Toaster. "Toast. Bob's your uncle."

"I don't have an uncle, thank god," Snape quipped absently, staring around the kitchen in a sort of horror. "You're going to die before you're forty without a mark on you. From malnutrition and coronary strangulation. And," he added, more or less to himself, brightening, "it's not my problem."

"Too bloody right it's not," Sirius grumbled. If he'd still been related to her, he'd have resolved to write to his Aunt Callisto and tell her she could stop nagging Evan about getting a wife (which she was certainly doing, since Evvie had not yet produced an heir) because he clearly already had one. Only then Snape might decide to start nagging Sirius, in earnest, just to be a pain. Reminded, "Speaking of which, Andromeda was, like yours truly—"

"Ha."

"Ha, indeed. Thrown out on her ear. Don't try to make me believe the family still cares about her or the Prismfish."

"I don't care what you believe," Snape blinked at him, and held out his hands imperiously. "Mixing bowl."

"I told you, we don't—"

"So make me one or hand me something you don't mind being temporarily transfigured," Snape said impatiently. "And a wooden spoon."

"Any particular kind of wood, Highness?" Sirius drawled, tapping a soup bowl and spoon with his wand. He left the spoon as it was, except for changing it from metal.

Snape accepted them, looking from the spoon to him with an _against all odds, I had expected better_ sort of resigned look.

"I thought you'd better adjust the size," Sirius explained, adding patronizingly, "being all wee as you are."

"That'll make it harder to change them back," Snape warned, but he was already growing the spoon and changing the bowl to be deeper, with steeper sides. It looked like marble, but that might just have been because things turned grey when Snape tried to change them.

"I'll manage," Sirius said dryly. "Assuming Moony doesn't decide he wants to keep them." Remus had occasionally mentioned missing toad in the hole, now Sirius came to think of it.

"Mm. I don't suppose you have a kitchen scale," Snape said hopelessly. "Or cups."

Sirius handed him a mug.

"_No_." He sighed. "How does Lupin measure out his porridge?" Despite being sorely tempted to tell Snape _with his hand_ or something, Sirius gave in and cooperated. After all, he clearly wasn't going to get anywhere until he did, and there was no one watching.

When they had that taken care of, Snape melted the goat and nut butters. With his _hands_, the freak, claiming he had better control that way. He graciously allowed Sirius to stir them into the porridge oats while he held his hands above the chocolate in the saucepan and beadily watched it melt.

Sirius tried again. "Nobody in the family's the least interested in Dora," he said, a little stony, "or would believe she's capable of enough moral development that it'd be worth someone watching his language around her."

"Oh, Black, don't be stupid," Snape said wearily, not taking his eyes off the chocolate. "Your mother and her brother aren't your whole family, or representative. And Andromeda's mother's a Rosier. 'Sub rosa' is their _family motto_. Which they tell everyone is just a dreadful medieval pun, and thereby _get away with it_. Andromeda's situation just means that certain formalities have to be observed in interacting with or assisting her."

"Like calling her a muddy whore at every opportunity?" Sirius demanded hotly.

Snape turned on him sharply. His eyes were keen, but not angry. "Don't pretend you're not living on a family inheritance," he said quietly. "Don't speak to me as if I know whether my mother hid the money for used schoolbooks from my father, or my grandmother snuck had to sneak her old ones to me under my grandfather's nose. The ones you used to try and destroy ten times a term."

Sirius shut up. He couldn't see how Snape expected him to have known that, though.

"I know how these things are done," Snape said, tired again, turning back to his giant lump of unshrunken chocolate. "When there's a divide, the really old families will go for subterfuge over shouting every time. It's how they get to be really old: declining to declare civil war. Unless and until someone won't let them and they find themselves with no way to quietly save face."

"Are you saying it's my fault Andi was cut off?" Sirius demanded, a breath away from punching him, whatever size.

Snape just cut him a really ironic look. "I'd like to, but Andromeda barely has more discretion than you. I don't know her well enough to judge her good sense, but I gather she petitioned to be reinstated once Nymphadora proved magical, which speaks only for her boundless capacity for hopeful self-delusion."

"Yeah, she did," Sirius allowed grudgingly, settling. "Why not? She'd proved her husband didn't throw squibs, so—"

"Changes nothing. Come here and stir this. Gentle, if you can manage it, and constantly; direction doesn't matter. _Clean the spoon first_."

"I like that, hygiene tips from—"

"I haven't put any sugar in the chocolate yet; would you like to drink it scalding? _Changes nothing_. She's a class traitor and she defied them publically in a very personal matter. The phobia about athaumatism is window dressing."

"English, Snape."

"_Mundanity_," Snape snapped, vexed with his stupidity. He'd cleaned and put an impervius on the counter, and formed the sticky oats into a sticky ball. "A lack of magic. Yes, it would have been worse if she'd thrown a squib, but I've never even met my wizarding grandparents. I not only got my letter but graduated, and that family trends Gryffindor. It's window dressing. Magic is genetic, but class is heritable and contagious_._" Dumping the ball onto the counter and forming it into two lumps, he added, "And everyone in Slytherin knows about my family already, so you can save yourself the trouble."

"What trouble?" Sirius asked. This was slightly disingenuous, okay, but he basically meant it.

Snape sneered at him, which looked even more ridiculous on a face that age now that Sirius was older. He rapped his wand on the mixing bowl, turning it into a long, shallow metal pan and putting half the oats back in. "Switch back, and squash the oats into a layer," he said, tracing the runes of a stasis charm over the other lump.

"You know," Sirius couldn't resist saying, "from a grown-up perspective, that sneer of yours looks even more ridiculous on a—what are, you, six? Than it did when we were both eleven. Which is bloody well saying something."

"Grown-up my eye. And you know perfectly well how old I am, we've just covered that," Snape said cuttingly, his eyes careful on the sugar he was pouring into a glass. It seemed to be turning to liquid once it got into the glass, and he didn't appear to need a measuring cup once liquids were involved. Bloody typical, the little show-off.

"No, but how'd you get like this, anyway?"

Snape twitched his face disgustedly without looking away from the sugar. "Adventures in child-minding."

"Oh, I'm having one, but what I _asked—_"

"Greengrass had asked me to tutor his niece," Snape sighed his irritation with being interrupted. A flick of his wand separated a splodge of walnut butter from the remains in the crock, and he started stirring that and the sugar-liquid into the melted chocolate. "Her father's not pleased with her potions marks. And then when I got there, Montague—I mean, Mrs. Greengrass said Narcissa had told her I was good with Draco and would I mind awfully looking after Daphne—"

"That'd be their daughter?"

"Right. She's just started teething and Montague hadn't had a moment for herself in weeks. She seemed a bit sleep deprived. I remember what Montague gets like when she's sleep deprived; she and Greengrass were both Slytherin prefects, if you'll recall. I took advantage of the opportunity to put the infant in life-debt."

Sirius snapped a quick look at him, but he had on the this-is-as-close-as-I-get-to-kidding expression. So Sirius just said, "While you were brewing."

"She was _sleeping,_" Snape snapped, "and I had more protective charms than god around that crib, proximity warnings and all that, and Montague agreed it was all right to spell her to stay sleeping while we were brewing."

"Still, a crib in the stillroom—"

"Don't be insane," Snape instructed him witheringly. "She was in her bedroom with a DIVE going."

"I assume this is a different sort of dive from the Hog's Head."

"Distress, Intrusions, Vocals, Excretions. Infant-monitoring charm. Learn one; I believe you'll need it soon."

"Oh. Well, what happened?"

Snape sighed, and pushed the bowl at Sirius. "Here, pour out half the chocolate over the oats. Wait, _do_ you have milk? _From an unmagical farm-type mammal which is not a horse or pig?_ Sheep wouldn't be my preference either, mind, but needs must."

"Yeah, I think we brought home some goat milk with the butter." Sirius tried not to laugh at his paranoia, since he knew how well that would go (if not in which direction). He didn't know what Snape's problem with re'em dairy was. Cow milk was boring.

"Less than half, then. Just cover them lightly."

"Right. So?"

"So Melitta—that's the niece—wanted to do the sleeping charm herself. Likes to take care of Daphne, I gather. Only, she's only a third year."

"Ah. Kid woke up and the monitoring charm went off?"

"And apparently Greengrass is under the impression that when I'm brewing the entire world goes away, so it was set to go off quite loudly. Melitta shrieked and caught a frog, as they say, with her ladle, and I got a faceful of potion, too much for my splash-guard to filter. Fortunately, she hadn't put in the knotgrass yet, so I can just wait it out, won't even have to brew an antidote. But dear god do they owe me for this one."

"I think they owe _me_ for this one," Sirius remarked. Snape smirked, but there was nothing terribly unpleasant about it. "Why did you have her brewing de-aging potion?"

Snape made a face. "The usual. They've got a vain great-uncle who wants some. They don't like him enough to commission me to do it right, and he's too cheap to buy it on or off Commercial Street himself when he can get someone to supervise child labor for him."

"Talking of vain," Sirius laughed.

"Black," Snape drawled, "_Pettigrew_ could brew a de-aging draught better than a third-year. I don't say you could, but…"

"I will snap you with this tea-towel," Sirius threatened amiably.

This was apparently blasphemy, because Snape looked less threatened than offended. "Not in the kitchen," he huffed. "Now, we can wait for that layer of chocolate to dry, or—"

Sirius took out his wand.

"Or you could be an impatient Gryff who'd rather do everything fast than well," Snape finished resignedly. "Fine. Pass me the goat milk and make another layer of oats on top of the chocolate."

He was watching Snape stir the milk into the chocolate when the Floo flared. "Oi, Padfoot," James bawled jovially.

Snape disapparated so fast he didn't even spin on his heel or put the milk down. He clearly took the time to let go of it, though. The jug shattered against the lip of the saucepan with a crash-and-clatter far louder than his spell, leaving milk and shards of brown porcelain all over the counter and disappearing into the hot, thick chocolate. Because he was an _arse_.

"Oh, sod," Sirius cursed. Then he wheeled around, and shouted, "Prongs, I need your wife!"

* * *

**Next**: Trelawney needs to get her Inner Eye checked if she can't tell the difference between a Grim and a sheepdog.

**Credit**: This fic is betaed (beta-ed?), britpicked, and cheerled by psyche-girl. I am not entirely sure how this happened or why she seems as excited about it as I am, but while I'm not sure yet what a beta will do for/to the _pace_ of my posting (also, this month's going to be a monster work-wise), so far this trial balloon's encouraging me about the quality. Although getting back comments that unpack what I was vaguely thinking by underlining the paradoxical paradigm of the paladin with acidic accuracy ["James will always, always put Doing the Right Thing above his personal inclinations, no matter how strong. (The problem, of course, is that when James is not bound by his absolutist moral code, he can do what he wants, and mostly what he wants to do is be a giant dick.)"] that make me fall over snorgling _repeatedly_ is not, admittedly, great for my deadlines. Psyche-girl writes her own fics, which are on AO3 if they aren't here. Go.

**Notes**: Actually Severus is biologically around eight in this fic. Sirius (who didn't know what hunger was before the '80s) forgot what a titchy little kid he was. Severus is quite pleased to let him get on with that. (smirk)

I don't think goat milk on it's own is anything much to write home about (sorry, Ms. Spyri, just was not that impressed), but eat it with chocolate and they both become _amazing,_ it's like beef and red wine.

Legendary accounts of the mythological-type of salamander are somewhat confused on the subject of whether they're fire or ice creatures. I account for this by making them cold-producing pyrophages. Wizarding cold boxes are serious business, although many people who didn't grow up with elves (like Severus) prefer to just slap a stasis charm on the cupboards every few days.

Re the summary—in Valley, Narcissa has a thing where being a Black witch is a job, career, and lifestyle, at least in her head, and she _will_ think of Severus that way. And tell him so. To his face. He's stopped arguing, for the health of his poor shins.

I used to know a Melitta (not well; much-older sibling of a friend), though the name didn't look real to me when I saw it again. She changed it the second she hit eighteen, so she probably wasn't a witch. Mind, she didn't actually change it to anything less unusual...


	2. The Pricking of the Needler

In which Lily is subtle like a subtle thing that subtly subtles.

* * *

Notes: Posting this was an impetuous decision while brushing my teeth this morning of November 9, 2016, which also would have been my mother's birthday. I don't like posting anything before its follow-up chapter is written (and I'll have to make sure this is the edited version tonight; I need to go to work now), and I've been stuck on chapter three of this for a very long time.

But we all need something today. Keep calm and stir your brew—and watch Stephen Tries To Make Sense of It All.

* * *

The Pricking of the Needler  


"Well, you can't have her," James said bemusedly, ambling in from the sitting room with his hair its usual delusionally-stylish disaster. He looked as if he'd dropped in more or less because he felt like it, although the bag on his shoulder said he'd brought some things to work on enchanting if they got around to it. Probably for the Aurors; Sirius thought he saw the shape of a shoe in there. "I saw her first. Anyway, I know you can do a reparo yourself. What happened?"

Sirius hesitated. What _had_ happened? He felt as though he'd fucked up monumentally and a small child was now helplessly lost in Knockturn or something, but that was bollocks. Snape had full control of his wand and brain and was therefore not in the least helpless: was completely his arse-noseish self and, hysterical dramatics aside, in less need of protection than just about anybody else in the universe. And, furthermore, he'd left on his own, without so much as a word. Why the hell should Sirius feel guilty about it?

Reluctantly, he closed his eyes and breathed out, let the annoyance fall away and the small, still, cool voice in him that understood these silent, slippery people speak. It and he said, "Evan—my cousin, the other one who's not a complete arse?"

"The one who slept through every single Prefect meeting?"

What Moony had said was that Evan had stared out the window and doodled and played notebook games with Ben Goldstein, but that was probably the same thing as far as Lily was concerned. "Yeah, him. He was giving me a chance to apologize for, er, that thing with Sniv and Moony in fifth year. It went west when you came in. I've got to track Sniv down without giving him a heart attack. He's, uh…" He trailed off, and lowered his hand to around his hip.

James's mouth quivered. "Do we _have_ to?" he asked plaintively.

"Come _on,_ Jamie," Sirius whined, knowing that would be enough. James might think a mini-Snape was funny (because it was), but James _had not been amused_ back in fifth year. Well, no one had, although Sirius had made the colossally stupid, nearly fatal mistake of trying to persuade everyone that, hey, since no one had actually gotten hurt…

But as long as Sirius didn't tell James Snape's mind was unaffected, he'd get over himself and take it seriously in a hurry. Maybe even if Sirius did, what with having a baby on the way. Sirius had been given to understand that Impending Fatherhood could muck about with a bloke's brain.

"All right, all right," James groused, but he was good-natured about it, and already with a little edge of anxiety curling in under. He got Sirius to fill him in more clearly on the way back to the fireplace, and then explained to Lily through the flames.

You couldn't really see a person's expression properly through Floo, but Sirius got the impression (as he often did, with Lily) that she thought they were the dumbest creatures on the face of the planet and being boys only excused them a little bit. "Well, he's not going to want to talk to _me,_" she said, in a voice that added, _you morons_.

"He likes you," James said, his own voice trying to be just-making-a-point-ma'am but actually hoping she'd take the problem off their hands and also deeply resentful.

"That was _years_ ago, Jamie," she said patiently. "He can't afford soft spots for people who are hard with him, and I couldn't afford to be anything else. I'm just another mudblood to him now, and a traitor for marrying you. Really, I'm the last person you should ask."

"Wouldn't be so sure, Hydrangea," Sirius said over James's cross, kneejerk scold over what she'd called herself, or said Sniv would call her. "I think that potion he slopped over his face did something to his emotions. I mean, he wasn't even insulting me hardly at all, he just wanted to make biscuits."

"He was at your mercy, Sirius," Lily sighed at him.

"Yeah, except he wasn't," Sirius told her. "He was totally playing along with Evan. I think for fun."

"And why did you say he was making biscuits again?"

"Well, he said it was to bribe Moony, but that was an excuse. I mean, I told him Moony prefers milk chocolate up front and he forgot to ask if we had milk right up till the end. I expect he was just passing the time, Queen Anne's Lace."

"Making biscuits is a harmless thing you can do without magic, that _occupies your hands_ if you do it without magic. They take time to make and have harmless kiddy-fun-fun-puppy-splashing-in-rainpuddle associations, Siri," Lily said. "He wanted you and your wand-hand to be busy for as long as possible, and feel like he was little and harmless."

Immediately, _immediately_ Sirius knew she was right, and was furious with himself for letting himself be snaked about. Not to mention annoyed with her: if she knew Sniv that well, why didn't she know Prongs well enough to know that waving it about how well she knew Sniv would hack her husband off and make him antsy and difficult until the next time she pulled him? She did, that was why not, she just wasn't thinking, because she was like that, and because she just had to get one over on Sirius. "He could have talked like he was little and harmless, then."

"_Pfff,_" Lily snorgled. Even when they'd hated each other the most, Sirius had had to admit that she only giggled when other girls were doing it, which was just good policy. "_Sev_? He couldn't pull that off when he was eight and his idea of mischief was getting a birthday card to my mum inside her morning egg."

"You're making that up," James said suspiciously.

"Ask her. I promise she remembers; it didn't work out as well as he hoped, poor kid—ugh, poor _Tuney. _And he'd read up for _weeks.._. Anyway, if he'd tried to act twee you'd have been sure he was Planning Something, Siri, wouldn't you. Look, I'm toasting my face off, here."

"That's right!" James jumped like something had stung him. "Lily, you shouldn't be kneeling! Come through at once."

"Oh, Christ," she sighed. "Jamie, I'm fine, but I need to either put more floo powder in or get up, and—'"

"No, you've got to find him," Sirius absolutely didn't beg. "Evvie'll set Narcissa on me. And _he_ probably wouldn't bring in Bellatrix right away, but Cissy? You never know."

"I told you, I'm the last person he'd talk to," Lily said patiently. The fire flared greener again as she added more powder, but only a bit. The _I am prolonging this conversation only slightly_ message was a quite pointed one.

James sighed enough aggravation to blow down at least a house of sticks and straw, if not a brick one. "OK, tell us where he'd go," he groused.

"…The second-last person he'd talk to," Lily amended dryly, and looked at Sirius, insofar as anyone could tell where eyes of fire with undifferentiated pupils were looking. "This is your quest, Sir Galavaunt."

"You mean Galahad," Sirius preened.

"I meant Gadabout, but then I thought I'd try to be polite," Lily said sweetly, "even though any person with a brain cell and a half to rub together would, in this situation, have told his mates this was not a good time to drop by, since none of you have the least notion of calling ahead or knocking. Honestly, it's as if the only one of you who wasn't raised by wolves is Remus."

"That's 'cause he did raise us," Sirius said, just to get Moony in trouble, too.

"Now you're just trying to get poor Remus in trouble," Lily scowled at him, amused. "We do not blame little Dutch boys with frostbitten fingers when tsunamis knock down the dykes."

"…What?"

"Never mind. I'll tell you where to look if Jamie leaves the room and you give me a wand-oath not to tell him or let him follow you."

Prongs's jaw dropped. "_What?_"

"Dearheart," Lily said—patiently, but the veil the patience drew over her mix of sad and leftover annoyance wasn't quite heavy enough to be opaque. "Sev didn't even pitch a fit about being left with Sirius, at least where Sirius could see, and he ran screaming when he heard your voice."

Sirius thought about pointing out that there'd been no actual screaming, but since this fact was marginally more to Sniv's credit than what Lily had said he decided not to. It'd just get Prongs's back up and make Sirius look bad. And also make Prongs look bad to Lily, which wasn't on.

"It doesn't matter how _I_ feel about you, or that _I_ know you've changed, or how I feel about him. I can't let you know where he goes when he's upset. _I_ know you've stopped bothering him, but knowing you know where to look for him would just scare him to death. It'd just be wrong, Jamie; I can't do it."

James glared at her, working up an argument, and she looked back levelly out of the fire while Sirius fervently wished to be elsewhere. Finally James grumbled, "It's very annoying that this is sort of what I love you for, and I intensely dislike it."

"And just think, you could have avoided the whole business by developing the habit of knocking." Prongs stuck out his tongue at her. "Well, come back home and we can argue about it," she suggested, smirking. He brightened.

"_Bleargh,_" Sirius announced. "Fine, sod off, Mushpot. Let's get this over with, Lils."

"Ooh, he's barked," James commented. "I mean narked."

"There's a quite dark wizard out there somewhere with a hair-trigger temper who looks about six," Sirius told him. He was a bit narked off, now someone mentioned it. "He's going to go somewhere dreadful and someone's going to try to take him apart for potions ingredients, seeing as he's not half pretty enough to get kidnapped for anything _really_ foul, and then he's going to _kill_ them. And we won't even be able to get him for it properly because he'll be a juvenile claiming self-defense and panic."

"So what you're saying," James said slowly, "is that a dark wizard we don't care about's gone off to be dark wizard bait, and the nastier bits of Knockturn Alley aren't going to be anyone's problem anymore by tomorrow, and the only downside is we may have to get Snape sentenced to the Thickey ward instead of Azkaban?"

"…You may have a point," Sirius said, but he was counting on Lily. There was another downside, and it involved his former family sending its shapelier members to eat his eyeballs. Or, worse, reproach him politely at length over tea. Also, Remus would Look Disappointed At Him.

"That is _not funny,_ you two," Lily scolded them, right on schedule. "Just because he had his mind and his memories doesn't mean the potion and the body weren't affecting his emotions. There's a reason being a juvenile would be a defense for him, Sirius. De-Aging potions are supposed to make you be young and _feel_ young again. Imagine if you were just little and someone had left you with a babysitter that scared you so much you had to bluff about how calm and mature you were, and then you got so much more scared you had to run away and you knew no one would come find you—"

"Which is why _you_ should come," Sirius explained at her.

"No," she said flatly. "I'm not explaining why again." She looked as if she were struggling with herself, then said reluctantly, "If you find him and he won't go with you, you can ask him if he wants to talk to me and send a Patronus. But I'll only come if it's somewhere it's safe to bring a baby. I'm not risking him over you lot being _boys_."

"You could drop him off with someone," Sirius pointed out, despite a voice at the back of his head telling him not to argue with mama-witches. "What about your mum?"

"She told me not to come by today if I didn't want to fight with Tuney."

"Urgh," Sirius conceded. "Strong constitution, your mum."

"Oh, Sirius, just because Tuney doesn't get along with _me_ doesn't mean she's completely worthless. It's not her fault she used to love fairy tales and then found out she wasn't the one who'd get to go live in one. And she's brilliant at organizing things; I expect Mum wants her help for Dad's surprise retirement party."

"Okay, okay," Sirius tried to appease her.

"Well, she probably does! It's not terribly easy to really surprise Dad, and he said he didn't want a big fuss made so all Mum's ideas were going to be too much—"

"Tiny, violent, greasy dark wizard on the rampage," James reminded her, grinning.

"On the toddle," Sirius corrected.

"—Right. I don't know why you don't think _he_ hasn't just gone home, Sirius. Or to see Narcissa Bl—Malfoy or someone."

"No, I thought of that," Sirius said. "But if he has, then there's not much we can do about it and he's perfectly safe, if not secure, and Evan can find him in two shakes when he gets back."

"…Which brings up the point of shouldn't you be bothering Rosier with all this, not me?"

"I don't know where he is," Sirius said. Which was true, but felt like a dodge, but there was no reason to dodge. He'd agreed to watch the prat; he _should_ want to do what he'd said he would. "He left Snape with a way to contact him, not me. He just said he was doing a wedding portrait."

"Wouldn't he be at his studio, then?" James asked.

"Could be," Sirius allowed. Evvie preferred to work on location, he knew, where the older Rosiers couldn't collar him when he looked not-busy and make him do more work and no one who wasn't paying him would wander by and make suggestions at him. But this might be their best chance at actually keeping Prongs from finding out where Sniv's hidey-holes were. Sirius didn't like finding out about them himself, not this way. If he'd _trailed_ Sniv to them, or forced the locations out of him, that would have been different. This was like getting a bloke's mum to rat him out; it just wasn't the thing. "Why don't you go see? It's, uh, I think it's between Gringotts and the robe shop. Near there, anyway."

"I don't mind," James said, heading for the door since the Floo was busy. "Worst Rosier's likely to do is yawn in my face or drip paint on me. Paddy, shall I leave this here?" He hefted the bag he'd come in with. "I wanted you to take a look at the sneaky trainers for Dumbledore. Lily made some progress on them last night."

"Bring 'em by tomorrow," Sirius shook his head. "If I end up bringing Sniv back here I'd rather he not wonder what they are."

"Good point. Right, Cherubim of Fire, home shortly."

"That's not clever when she's actually in the floo, Prongs."

"She knows what I meant!"

"It's my eyes. Fetch milk, will you?" she asked. "And if you happen to pass wherever you found that fantastic redcurrent wensleydale…"

"A quest!" James yelped happily, and bounded out the door.

"Exit one pint whipped cream," Sirius commented after him, amused.

"If there's one nice thing about Gryffindor boys," Lily said complaisantly, "it's that you're all marvelously cheap dates. A six-pack, a mountain to climb, and thou beside me in the wilderness. Hufflepuffs always want to take a girl to the opera or something to prove they're not plodding, unsophisticated duffers. One doesn't always _want_ the dead mouse you lot come trotting back with, but at least one can bring a book or one's work."

"And we take suggestions."

"Though _you_ sometimes take them off the Quidditch pitch, through the Forbidden Forest, and into realms unrecognizable," she smiled, a little headachy with recollection but not terribly reproachful, for her.

"Lends an element of surprise. Mountains are actually quite expensive," he noted.

"Only if you're fixed on actually _buying _them," retorted Lily. "A nice hike thereon in the fresh air's enough for most people. Or, better yet, a nice flight there-around. And you and Jamie would rather sneak in than own one, don't pretend you wouldn't."

"Can there be yetis?" he asked hopefully.

She laughed, but then gave him a look that was halfway between uneasy and stern. "Now, look, Siri, if I tell you where to look you're not going to be a pest about it later, are you?"

Sirius squirmed. He scratched his ear—with his hand, although part of him wanted to be doing it with his foot. Slowly, he asked, "If I say how about you just give me a one-off portkey, will you tell James it was your idea and I was a pain about it?"

She just looked at him, slow and considering and crackling in flame.

Having a feeling she would reach right out of the fire and smack him if he implied she was old enough to be Snivvy's mum (though everyone knew she'd spent her first four years at Hogwarts nagging him like she was; it was amazing his roommates hadn't just poisoned his sheets for putting up with it, when you thought about it, or maybe they had and he'd been too toxic himself to be affected), Sirius squirmed again. He decided on, "…There wasn't anywhere you could go to get away from people, at Grimmauld, except the library, and most of those books would eat you soon as be looked at. Dad had his study, but he was always in it."

Her face softened. Sirius felt a bit dirty, not in a good way, and wished he'd thought of a lie that would work instead.

"Sev's mum encouraged him to play outside," Lily said carefully. Sirius, with a small, wary, parrotty face fresh in his memory, instantly imagined about twelve nightmare houses. He wondered whether Lily meant Snape had been running away from his mum or she'd been sending him away from something worse. Then he yelled _THIS IS SNIVELLUS_ at himself, because he shouldn't be wasting a lip-biting on someone like that. You had a choice about growing up nasty; look at him and Reg. Anyway, Snivvy would have flown at him to take his face off at the first suggestion of pity or even understanding. Probably would even have flown at a girl he'd unaccountably had a chance with. Sniv was mental.

"So he could be anywhere."

"There are a few places. I won't send you right to them; he'd be really upset. Close enough to do a point-me. You'll show him the portkeys when you find him, and give them back to me, used or not, and I'll owl Rosier and tell him how many I got back," she added sternly. She didn't bother to explain why she wouldn't owl Snape directly; even people who didn't have jealous husbands or other sorts of difficult histories with him preferred to deal with his more polite flatmate when humanly possible, Sirius expected.

"Right." He didn't want _at all_ to examine why he felt relieved.

"Back in a tick, then."

The fire died as she backed away to do her spellowork. Sirius went back into the kitchen to presumably-finish Sniv's… thing. Porcelain and excessive puddles of milk out of the chocolate, give it a quick re-warming and mix-up, pour it over that second layer of sticky oats, apply another cooler and an impervius.

Not alchemical technomancy, or, if it was, it was Sniv's own fault for doing a bunk and leaving him to ruin it and he should get points for effort. Shrinking the pan, he slipped it into his pocket. He'd decided at the last minute not to wrap it in a napkin, because Snape would be snide at him if he didn't but suspicious if he was in any way mannerly.

Lily was a quick worker with charms, but it still took her a few minutes longer to prepare her portkeys. The fire flared again, and bloomed her hand, holding a drawstring bag, instead of any face. "Here you are," she said. "Got them?"

He took the bag. "Got it. Skin-for-time trigger?"

"No." She put her face in, evidently for the express purpose of looking sardonic at him. "The trigger word is _pax._"

"You are a right pain, milady," he sighed. "Right, I'm off to track down your straying ass."

"Mule," she corrected severely, or maybe she was calling him one, and the fire died again.

Apparently Lily didn't hold with the standard practice of making portkeys look like rubbish, at least when she was going to get their bases back. He considered the little charm-bracelet looking things, tipped into his palm. A spinning wheel, a fish, a children's slide (unless it was a malformed elephant), six kinds of leaves, a bluebell, a book.

Not exactly promising clues for hunting down even a teeny dark wizard, but you had to make allowances for Lily. For Lily Being Pointed, probably. He'd see where they actually took him, and he wouldn't let his guard down. _Especially_ for the bluebell.

Since the other things could be explained, if taken literally, due to Sniv being a potioneer who'd once been a child, Sirius used the spinning wheel portkey first. Despite all his resolve to make Moody proud of him, the first breath nearly killed him.

To give Sirius and his perfectly respectable DADA marks their due, nothing had actually attacked him. And to give Lily the credit she deserved (which, in Sirius's hacking, gasping opinion was minimal), she hadn't portkeyed him into a wall or one of the looming mechanical monsters with which he was surrounded.

No, the difficulty was just that it turned out to be a bad idea to portkey into a room full of large, complex objects that (Sirius inferred) hadn't been used in about ten years by anything but dust mites. Or a room full of teenagers, even muggle ones, who thought they were right bad lads.

* * *

Next (at some point, hopefully): The Hounding of the Basket-Case


End file.
